In August 2025 I started on a quest to finish one of my more ambitious posts that I started, but never finished, a post where I shared and explained the different Kwan Creeds, or the underlying philosophy of each Kwan. Originally it was going to be one large post, but I never got around to finishing it, despite having some good notes and crude translations from a Korean source (which sadly does not exist anymore, but I have since found more to verify).
In post 1 I tackled the Chung Do Kwan Creed, a creed that consists of 3 sentences.
In post 1.2 I revisited the Chung Do Kwan after a great person took his time to point out I had made a mistake :-) So again thank you for that, I hope post 1.2 is better :-)
This, post, the third one, but I am calling it part 2 is focusing on Song Mu Kwan, a school that for some reason does not stand much out in discussions online. It seems that most people focus on Mu Duk Kwan, Chung Do Kwan, Oh Do Kwan (most often through an ITF lense) and sometimes Ji Do Kwan. Other schools like Chang Mu Kwan, Kang Duk Won, Han Mu Kwan, Song Mu Kwan etc are often overlooked. Song Mu Kwan in particular seems to often be written off as "Korean Shotokan". I do not possess any technical documents on Song Mu Kwan from the Kwan-era so I will not comment on how the techniques were performed, but we do have some oral testimony of the training, where it is said that Ro stressed striking the Dallyon Joo (Makkiwara or striking board, literally forging post), lifting weights (though I have yet to find details) and strong basics focusing on stopping power; "one strike - one kill" mentality.
Luckily enough the Kwan Heon of Song Mu Kwan does survive and it is those I want to focus on today.
Here follows a brief history of Ro Byung Jik and Song Mu Kwan from my book "The Lost Forms of Oh Do Kwan Taekwondo Volume 1: Taegeuk 1-3 Hyeong". I have previously shared the text here on the blog so feel free to skip ahead if you wish, but I find that grouping the history and background of the Kwan founder and the Kwan together with the Creed makes for a better read :-) Especially if you have not already read it.
"Ro Byung Jik and the Song Mu Kwan
Ro Byung Jik was born in 1919. Like many Koreans of his generation who sought higher education, he traveled to Japan in 1936, where he studied Karate under Gichin Funakoshi and his son Yoshitaka “Gigo” Funakoshi.
After returning to Korea, Ro made several attempts to establish a martial arts school, beginning around 1944–1945. His efforts met with limited success at first, but after the Korean War, he began to gain traction - especially as American military personnel began training at his dojang. This post-war period marked the real emergence of his school, which he named the Song Mu Kwan (송무관, 松武館).
Ro played a key role in organizing the direction of Korean martial arts during the early years. He held prominent positions within the Korean Taekwondo Association (KTA) and was instrumental in supporting Choi Hong Hi in founding the International Taekwon-Do Federation (ITF) in 1966.
According to A Modern History of Taekwondo by Kang and Lee, training in the Song Mu Kwan under Ro began with weight training and hundreds of repetitions on the striking board (dallyeon ju, also known as makiwara), even before formal instruction began. Ro emphasized strong basics and disciplined repetition, an approach that echoes the intense, foundational training style of Yoshitaka Funakoshi, known for elevating the athletic and combative intensity of Karate in the 1930s and ’40s.
The name Song Mu Kwan is composed of:
• Song (松) meaning “pine tree,”
• Mu (武) meaning “martial,”
• Kwan (館) meaning “school” or “hall.”
Interestingly, the Song (Sho in Japanese) is the same character used in Shotokan (松濤館), possibly a deliberate nod to Ro’s roots in Shotokan Karate, reflecting both reverence for his lineage and a desire to localize that identity within Korea." End quote
Trivia: Song Do Kwan is Shotokan in Korean, so SONG Mu Kwan and Chung DO Kwan both has a possible Shotokan/Songdokwan nod in their name.
According to my sources Ro Byung Jik developed tenets for his school to have as their underlying philosophy, in a similar manner to the more well known tenets of Taekwon-Do later developed by General Choi. There is a lot of overlap between the two sets which I find very interesting.
The Kwan Heon of Song Mu Kwan
This tenet might seem somewhat similar to the more well known ITF/Oh Do Kwan tenets of Taekwon-Do where the first part of this creed is the same as the first in ITF: 예의 (Yeui). In most texts it is translated as curtesy, but Yeui (禮儀) can also be etiquette, propriety, ritual courtesy. My original teacher who is a Korean native translated it once to me as "The correct way of doing something". The second part of the tenet: 존중 Jonjung (尊重) can be translated as "respect", "honor", or "esteem". Together this can be translated as: "Respect for etiquette and propriety". The "propriety" is added to reflect the Confucian depth of "Yeui" better than mere "etiquette" alone would. Online you might see: "Respect for curtesy", "respect for etiquette" or simply "Be curtious" but I hope breaking down the phrase shows that there is a little more going on than that. Gichin Funakoshi once famously said: "Karate begins and ends with courtesy", so there is no wonder that Ro, a direct student of Funakoshi, would include this in his Kwan Heon. Another slightly simpler translation which is also valid is Courtesy AND Respect :-)
Once again the first part of this tenet might look familiar to those more aquatinted to the ITF tenets, 극기 or Geukgi (克己) shows up in the tenet "self control" and it contains the same meaning here (self-control, self-mastery, overcoming the self). The second part 겸양 (謙讓) can be translated as: "modesty", "humility", or "yielding attitude". Together the meaning can be translated as: "Self-control and humility". Again we see a very strong Confucian influence on the tenets Ro uses.
The third tenet consists of two words; 부단 (不斷) which can be translated as "unceasing", "uninterrupted", or "never-ending" and 노력 (努力) that can be translated as "effort", or "striving". Together this tenet can be translated as "Ceaseless effort", or perhaps a little more plain-talking: "Never give up". Again we see a similarity in the more well known tenets by Choi Hong Hi, although he uses other words to get to the same meaning, often translated into English as "perseverance". So to be clear the tenets wording is different, but the overall meaning in language is the same. A trend we see is the Confuscian language used by Ro vs the sometimes militaristic language used by Choi Hong Hi, but Choi´s military backgroung is well known so there is nothing strange about that. Taekwondo and indeed Martial Arts instructors in general often say that (insert martial art here) is a marathon, not a sprint, which is also something we see reflected in this tenet.
The fourth tenet consists again of two parts; "Giung" and "Manbu". I have seen this tenet translated as "Indomitable Spirit" online, but if you look at the wording used we see that 기웅 (氣雄) can be translated as heroic spirit or perhaps courageous energy, ki showing up often enough that well read readers of this blog will know it is a little difficult to translate directly, but "energy", "spirit" and even "principles" are sometimes used. In this context courageus/ Heroic spirit/ energy all works. 만부 (萬夫) literally means ten thousand men, but the phrase shows up in classical military and moral litterature in idioms so we can infer a more poetic; "unyielding before any opponent" according to a more knowledgeable person than myself. Literally it means something like “a spirit that ten thousand men cannot overcome.” This is a similar tenet to the indomitable spirit used in Choi Hong Hi´s tenets: 백절불굴 (Indomitable Spirit). But as you can see the wording is different. I will revisit Choi´s tenets in a future post, its just that his are so well known that they are good to compare to, but I will not go into them indepth until I have put forward more of the lesser known creeds.
The fifth and last Song Mu Kwan tenet is Munmu Gyeomjeon, again consisting of three parts, the two first characters can probably be grouped as one though. 문 (文) which can be translated as: "civil virtue", "learning", or "culture", and 무 (武) meaning martial virtue, military skill. It is the same Mu as in Mudo/Muye/Mu Duk Kwan/ Musul/ Musa etc etc. The second or third depending on how you group this together is 겸전 (兼全) meaning possessing both fully. This phrase is a classical Confucian ideal going back centuries, and the possibly best translation into English I can come up with for the term, a translation that other translators much more clever than I also have put forth is: "Harmony of civil and martial virtue".
Together these tenets that together makes the "Song Mu Kwan Heon" or Creed of Song Mu Kwan gives a great insight into what the founder of Song Mu Kwan, Ro Byung Jik tried to instill in his students.
Often on sites presenting the Song Mu Kwan Creed in English there is a misconception on what is presented in the original language and what is actually present in the English text. A typical example of this is the following examples of typical Song Mu Kwan Heon is taken from
here
"예의 존중 (禮儀 尊重)
Everything begins and ends with Courtesy and Respect."
The problem I have with this presentation on that site is that it presents the English explanation as a translation, but it does not really say "Everything begins and ends....." only "Courtesy" and "Respect" is present. It could work as a highly interpretive translation.
"극기 겸양 (克己 謙讓)
Your pursuit of the Way must be with humility, and indifference to pain or pleasure. "
This English text is so interpretive of what it really says in the original language that I am not sure if we should call it a translation. Again if someone had a talk "about what the creed means" and talking around the meaning it is fine, but often this is presented as a translations which it is not. "Self control and humility" is what the text actually says (taking into account that some variations will be OK depending on what nuance of meaning a translated wishes to come across. There is no "pursuit of the Way....." in the original.
"부단 노력 (不斷 努力)
Realizing the Truth of Song Moo Kwan is a lifelong pursuit."
Again if you were to talk around the original concept the English is ok, but as a translation it is very overreaching. There is no mention of Song Mu Kwan, truth or anything like that. "Never ending effort" and slightly interpretive but completely ok as a translation "lifelong pursuit", is in the original tenet or creed. Nowhere does it say what the English says.
"기웅 만부 (氣雄 萬夫)
Your Indomitable Spirit should reflect the power of a million men."
This one is actually OK based upon my research into the phrase. Manbu as in 10 000 is idiomatic and does not necessarily mean exactly 10 000, a million in the translation is just as idiomatic in English.
"문무 겸전 (文武 兼全)
Unite the wisdom of the Scholar with strength of a Warrior, integrating your mind and body into one."
This one too works. Slightly interpretive but it is inline with what the original actually says.
I do not want to infer that the text I borrowed here is not authentic. For all I know this might even come from Gm Ro Byung Jik himself. If that is true however I think he talked about what the Creed says, and not actually translated it, because as we have seen in the post when you check what it originally says it is not the same as the English provided in the site I linked to. The problem arises when people who can not read Korean look at the English text and say: "This is what these characters mean".
I hope you enjoyed this look into the Song Mu Kwan Creed :-) If you enjoyed this post please consider sharing it online on facebook or other social media, especially if you think it is important that people get to know more about Kwan philosophy. It is this that takes us from Taekwon to Taekwondo ;-)
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